The photos of the Berlin Wall are from an inter-railing trip in the late 1980s. It was a coincidence to rediscover them in an old shoebox on the day that it was announced Lou Reed had died. I can still vividly recall a lurid, orange BASF cassette being pressed into my hand in the school playground. “Listen to this!” It was a recording of Rock n Roll Animal. Things changed.

I can still remember a number of the cassettes that travelled in the rucksack on that inter-railing adventure. Berlin was certainly one of them.

18 Responses to Some Questions of the Drift

This is a wonderfully haunting post, with a perfect balance between the oddness of the words and the curious selection of pictures. Thank you, in particular, for introducing me to the work of Clarice Lispector, who was hitherto unknown to me, I’m embarassed to say.

Thanks for the comment Ian. I’m fairly new to Lispector myself but looking forward to reading more of her work. That opening quote I used is almost the last line of ‘The Hour of the Star’ and it just resonated. Very much enjoyed your recent pieces in ‘Earthlines’ and ‘Under a Grey Sky’.

Thanks Diana. One of the few consolations following his death has been the outpouring of peoples memories connected to Lou Reed, including those ‘difficult’ interviews for which he was famous. On the musical front his quality control was not always consistent but, overall, what a great body of work to leave behind.

Great provocation to thought. Reminded me of the 1980s book ‘The Meaning of Liff’ – a light hearted attempt to find words (actually co-opted obscure place names) to give meaning to everyday expwriences that oddly have no existing names. To my mind it shows a glimpse of how thoughts can (just about) exist beyond language, but need to be spoken of to stabilise and share them. Hmm, that was a bit heavy for a Saturday morning, time for a strong cup of tea and a sit down I think…

Thanks Luke. Must have a look. I do think that at times there is an ‘excess of experience’ which sort of escapes language sometimes – no bad thing. On another tangent, if you have kids of a certain age, they will no doubt be playing ‘What does the fox say’ Makes me smile that these types of question can also be asked in viral pop songs!